In the summer of 1984, when Michelle Bowdler was a 24-year-old living in Boston, two men broke into her apartment and raped her. Bowdler did what the justice system asked of her: She completed a rape kit and was interviewed by the police, whom she never heard from again. Hers would not be one of the mere 2% of reported rapes in the United States that result in conviction or incarceration. In her stellar, unsettling book, Bowdler, now a public health executive, seeks answers—about why her own case disappeared, but also why America seems so comfortable continuously, systemically failing survivors.
Buy Now: Is Rape a Crime? on Bookshop | Amazon
More Must-Read Stories From TIME
- Climate-Conscious Architects Want Europe To Build Less
- The Red-State Governor Who's Not Afraid to Be 'Woke'
- Jonathan Van Ness: We Are Still Not Taking Monkeypox Seriously Enough
- The Not-So-Romantic Return of Europe's Sleeper Trains
- This Filmmaker Set Out To Record Her Family’s Journey Rebuilding Afghanistan. Her Work Is a Reminder of What’s at Stake
- Why Sunscreen Ingredients Need More Safety Data
- What Historians Think of the Joe Biden-Jimmy Carter Comparisons
- Author Mimi Zhu Is Relearning What It Means to Love After Trauma
